Southern Fried Chicken Lickin Goodness

A total artery clogger but soooooo nom nom nom nom...

Ingredients
About 1kg of chicken thighs (5 decent sized thighs)
2 eggs
Half a cup of Frank's Hot Sauce
1 cup of plain flour
1 litre vegetable oil

Method

1. Heat 1 litre of vegetable oil in a deep pot until hot.
2. While it's heating up, beat eggs and mix in the Hot Sauce.
3. Spread flour on a separate plate.
4. To coat the chicken, dip the thighs in the egg mixture and then dredge in flour.
5. Drop into the oil and cook for 15 minutes, turning once or twice.

There's no need to season the flour as Frank's Hot Sauce has got plenty of seasoning in it.

I serve it with a bean salad and rice. 

Slow Cooked Gaeng Phed Ped (Thai Duck Curry)

For years Thai green curry was my go-to favourite of all the South East Asian varieties. That was of course until recently I decided to mix things up a bit and use red curry instead, and boy was I pleased I did. Red curries are so much more heartwarming and aromatic and when paired with tasty meats such as duck or beef they all utterly delectable. 

For this red curry I use our trusty Morphy Richard's slow cooker which makes what is essentially a very easy dish to make, completely foolproof. 

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 duck breasts

2 teaspoons of Chinese 5 spice 

1 400 ml tin of coconut milk (give it a good shake before opening)

1 tablespoon of red curry paste (I use Mae Ploy, reviewed here)

1 tablespoon of muscovado sugar

2 teaspoons of fish sauce

Juice of 1 lime

2 teaspoons of tamarind paste (the stuff I use is a soup base and looks like this)

4/5 dried kaffir lime leaves 

2 rings of tinned pineapple chopped into inch-width pieces

2 tomatoes quartered

Method:

1. Set a frying pan on aa ring and turn the heat to a medium-high temperature.

2. Completely cover the fat/rind side of the duck with 5-spice powder and dry fry the duck by placing it fat-side-down, onto the pan and leave to cook until it is gone dark brown and crispy. 

3. Turn on your slow cooker and turn the heat to high. Pour in the coconut milk and then mix in the red curry paste. 

4. Add the fish sauce, tamarind, sugar, lime juice and kaffir lime leaves to the curry mix and give it a quick stir. 

5. Add the duck, fat side up.

6. Turn down the heat to low and leave to cook for 5 hours.

7. After 5 hours, skim off any excess fat that has risen to the top and add the pineapple and tomato to the sauce.

8. Leave to cook for another 30 minutes or so, season with fish sauce and/or sugar to taste and serve with Thai jasmine rice.

Penne con Sugo di Salsiccie alla Daire

The star of the show here are Italian sausages, the little fat ones with lots of marbling and spiced with lots of yummy Italian flavours. Your average Denny sausage will not do and would be sacrilegious to substitute for the genuine article (in fact, it would be just gross so don't even go there).

Italian sausages can be difficult to get a hold of here in Dublin and I've had quite a few comical conversations when ringing various delis to see if they have any of these particular sausages in stock. Thankfully the staff in these delis will no longer be on the receiving end of my incredibly immature sense of humour as I've discovered that Fenelons, the most amazing butchers in the world, have these bad boys in stock pretty much all the time. Which is fantastic as Stillorgan is just a two minute drive from where we live.

The meal itself may not be the healthiest meal in the world, but man is it good.  There is something so incredibly comforting about it, we can't get enough of it!

Serves 2-3
Ingredients
1 tablespoon of olive oil
4 Italian sausages (the ones I get come in a pack weighing 315g)
1 tin of whole tomatoes (drained)
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic
pinch of chilli flakes
120ml red wine
A good pinch of nutmeg
Handful of grated parmesan
70ml cream
Enough penne for two people

1. Heat olive oil in a large pan.
2. Remove sausages from their casings and add to the pan. Make sure to break up the sausage with a wooden spoon. After a few minutes add the onion, garlic and chilli. Cook gently for about 10 minutes.
3. Pour in the wine and increase the heat. Cook until the wine has evaporated.
4. Add the drained tinned tomatoes, lower heat and simmer until a thick sauce has formed (30-45 minutes).
5. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Add parmesan and cream.
6. Cook penne, drain well and add to the sauce. Combine and serve.
7. Tuck in.

Borrowed and modified from the River Cafe Cookbook

Buon appetito! 

Larb Moo

Serves 2

Ingredients

200g pork mince

1 onion finely chopped

1 inch of ginger, grated

2 or 3 cloves of garlic

Juice of 1 lime

½ teaspoon of chilli flakes

Good dash of fish sauce

Handful of mint, coriander and basil roughly chopped

To serve

Thai jasmine fragrant rice

1/3 of an iceberg lettuce shredded

Method

1. Get the rice on. 
2. Put a glug of vegetable or sunflower oil on a pan and put the heat to medium (don't use olive oil - the flavour isn't right for this).
3. Finely dice the onion.
4. Sauté the onion.
5. Grate an inch-long piece of ginger and add to the pan with 2 cloves of garlic (3 if you fancy it).
6. Add half a flat teaspoon of dried chilli flakes. You may need less or more depending on how hot you like your food. For reference, I add a flat teaspoon and we like it hot.
7. Add the minced pork to the pan and break up with a wooden spoon. Mix everything together.
8. Squeeze the juice from a whole lime into the pan along with a healthy dash of fish sauce.
9. Leave to cook for about 5-10 minutes.
10. Finely chop mint, basil and coriander and add to the pan. Mint and basil are by far the most important herbs here so don’t worry if you’ve no coriander.
11. Shred/chop the iceberg lettuce.
12. At this stage your rice should be cooked, if not, put the larb on a low heat until ready to serve.
13. Serve with rice and iceberg lettuce on the side. Tip: If you want to improve the presentation of this, put your rice into a small ramekin or cup and then turn out onto the plate to create an impressive dome of rice. It’s also a handy way of keeping an eye on your portion sizes.

14. Eat! Once served, I generally mix it all together on my plate which goes against my method eating ways but it's definitely the best way to enjoy it!

Fillet o' Fish with a Twist

A super easy Saturday night supper. Eaten while watching Ireland beat South Africa! Woo.

Ingredients

2 cod fillets (enough for two burgers)

2 tablespoons flour

4 tablespoons of panko breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

1 egg

Lime aioli

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1/4 a clove of garlic

Juice of 1 lime

4 sprigs of coriander chopped.

To serve

Avocado

Rocket

Sesame seed burger buns

1. Set up plates/bowls for breadcrumbing the fish.

    - one plate with flour and some salt

    - one bowl with whisked egg

    - one plate with panko breadcrumbs and sesame seeds

2. Heat 1 inch of vegetable oil in a frying pan.

3. Coat fish: lightly dust with flour, dip in egg, cover with breadcrumb mix.

4. Fry until golden.

5. While the fish is cooking make the aioli: Mix mayonnaise, minced garlic, lime juice and chopped coriander.

5. Serve with sliced avocado, rocket and toasted burger buns. Make sure to spread a generous amount of lime aioli on buns before serving.

The tipple of choice for the evening was a Tesco Simply Riesling (€9ish). Worked perfectly with the zingyness of this dish.

Cannelloni Spinaci e Ricotta

Ingredients

For the ragu

1 tin of whole plum tomatoes

2 cloves of garlic

1 handful of fresh basil

Half teaspoon tomato puree

Salt and pepper

White sauce

25g butter

25g flour

300ml milk

Pinch of nutmeg

Cannelloni and filling

2 bags of spinach

1 tub ricotta

Pinch of nutmeg

16-20 tubes of dried cannelloni

1 mozzarella ball

Method

1. Heat oven to 180 degrees.

2. Make ragu. Heat olive oil in a pot and saute garlic. Add tinned tomatoes. Roughly tear basil and add to sauce. Add tomato puree and season.  Once cooked pour the ragu into an oven proof dish.

3. Make white sauce.  Make a roux by melting flour and adding flour until a paste is created.  Add flour, stirring constantly.

4. Wilt spinach in a large pot with a small amount of water. Once wilted drain and squeeze the excess water from the spinach. Get as much water out as possible or else the filling will go watery. Mix in the ricotta and nutmeg.

5. Fill a piping bag with ricotta and spinach mix and fill the pasta tubes. I improvise here by filling a freezer bag and making a hole in one corner. Place cannelloni in the dish on top of ragu, continue until the dish is full.

6. Pour over while sauce and tear mozzarella over the top.

7. Place in the oven and cook for 30 minutes or until mozzarella has turned golden brown.

To accompany this we had a went for a Barolo. They were an ok match, perhaps a Beaujolais would have worked better here...